Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Today we went on the subway to downtown LA. I was surprised at how clean and "Hollywood" like the subway was! The ceiling was made up of film reels, there were old huge film cameras and palm tree like statues.
The tickets only cost $1.75 for a single trip and $7.00 for and all day ticket.
Whilst we were waiting for Jo and Pierre to finish buying their tickets I noticed a guy trying not to be noticed - and why did he not want to be noticed?? He was relieving himself behind one of the statues!!! You'd expect that from any homeless person anywhere in the world right? I saw the same thing in Sydney! The only thing was that this guy didn't look homeless!!!!! I tell you what, there's a very even balance of normal vs weird around here!!! I just struggle to work out who is what!!
We got on the train, downtown was only 6 stops away which is approx. 10 minutes. The trains are all under ground (sub way) so there's no view. The carriages were clean, not even graffiti!! Well not in the ones we were in!!
Once we got to downtown LA it was a whole new world. Exactly what you would see on TV. Groups of dark people hanging around - mostly older men. There was a man walking with a frame that had music blaring out of his speaker - so cute!! He was a nice guy, Chris noticed the song that was playing and started to bop and the man says "oh, you know this song?" and Chris said "Yeah, this is from the movie break dance, electric boogaloo!" (Such a proud moment...). The man's eyes lit up and he said "You know, I'm from New York and this is my style of music, I know them all!" Mind you this man looked in his 60's, hence the cute comment I made earlier.
We walked toward Grand Central Market, which we thought would be something like The Queen Vic market back home, but it wasn't - it was a food market - cooked food market! Like a city food court but market style. It looked good, was really packed so I assume the food must be good! The one store that made us laugh was Eggslut! Apparently they have different style omelettes. What made it funnier was Eggslut was looking for workers!!
We continued to walk down Broadway (that was the name of the street) and every second shop was a jewellery store or electrical store run by Mexicans - they all spoke Spanish! Even the young girls in the stores spoke broken English!
We found a department store that to me was exactly like Trade Secret. We made a few purchases here.
We bought a mobile phone for Jo and I while we're here and the shop assistant - Jackie, was probably the nicest person we had met at a store. She was awesome! So nice and helpful, gave us free phone covers and earphones. Jackie said it was best for us to make sure that we don't stick around after 8pm, as that's when the freaks come out. We didn't see many, I guess it's safer for them to sleep all day and run their freak show all night!!
On that note it was 6:45pm, starting to get dark so we legged it back to the station. There was a dark guy loitering around us as we were paying for tickets, to me he seemed like he generally wanted to help us but he told him we were fine and he stood back. As it turns out, Mia says he told her and Jezelle he was waiting for the cops to go - we were assuming it was so he could get on the train for free. He was still creepy though!
Back on the train coming home - not scary at all. I found that as soon as we started talking people would stare at us - knowing we were from another country. Chris always spoke to the locals and found a new friend Al. It's awesome that we can strike up conversations with locals and they are all so helpful.
We ended up going to a pizza place on the way home. I was a bit reluctant as I didn't know what it was going to be like. Funny thing is, when you order it's basically a cheese pizza and you add the toppings you want. Every topping you add is $0.75. We ordered an 18" pizza, thinking that we'd have some left over for the next day - but we polished it off! It was amazing! The dough wasn't heavy, the whole pizza wasn't heavy! Usually it would make us feel bloated, but not this one!!
By the time we got home we were stuffed!!! It was a big day and happy to be back in the apartment with our feet up.
Not sure what tomorrow's plans are - maybe Santa Monica and Rodeo Drive,need to make sure I'm cashed up!!!
- comments